OK, so I thought scientists with Doctoral degrees used, ya know,

[The Onyx Key]

science and logic and stuff. Then I found this:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2732

That's it. I'm going to bed.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Gee, I wonder who funds this "Discovery Institute"?

Read, and "Discover" a few things about this group, including its funding sources...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute

[NanceGreggs]

2. I defy anyone to read this crapola ...

... and not be TOTALLY CONVINCED, once and for all, that these people are indeeed descended from monkeys.

[benddem]

3. Isn't the Discovery institute

one of those groups hawking intellingent design? If you go to the website they have two articles from that illustrious scientific journal "The Washington Times" and two articles laying out the responses necessary to refute darwin. I'd have to see the list of the scientists and their vitae to make a decision on the validity of this article.

[adnelson60087]

5. YEP, they were the "minds" behind ID

and the waste of money and resources of the school board of Dover. These people probably disagree with Gravity too...It's just a matter of time.

[donco6]

4. So, here's the actual statement they signed off on:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

I'm virtually an atheist, but I could probably sign off on this. And who knows how they got them to sign it? Fundie whackos are not above subterfuge and plain old lying.

[drm604]

6. It's already been carefully examined.

How many times do we have to do it?

Actually, it is still being carefully examined today. Not because there's any doubt about evolution through natural selection, but just because that's what science does. You constantly examine and improve on existing theories. But with evolution it's not about confirming natural selection, that's already been done beyond any reasonable doubt, instead it's about filling in the details - steady state versus punctuated equilibrium, for example.

It's the 21st century why WHY are we still having this conversation? :grr:

[KittyWampus]

12. That is because you are being intellectually HONEST. Something most

scientists are NOT when it comes to Evolutionary Theory.

Random, blind selection is simply an artifice of Materialism. It can't be proven and actually does not account for the following capabilities:

COSNIOUSNESS
Organization
Information generation
Information Communication

The very fact that overall, Reality maintains itself rather then disintegrates, that it is comprised of interconnected bits, that it combines chaos with order makes the notion of blind chance as the Motive power behind Evolution absurd.

It makes more sense to suppose that Reality BEGINS with a capacity for things like Consciousness that then develops and becomes more complex as time goes on.

And all of the above is written well outside the realm of positing the existance of a "Creator" or some Being with a personality like you or I.

Intellectually honest DU'ers need to look up the term "Philosophy of Science" and then research Materialism and then Idealism.

[Viking12]

15. Yawn. Argument from Incredulity.

Try an argument not based on a logical fallacy next time.

[Bridget Burke]

21. Philosphy is certainly interesting.

But it has no place in Biology class.

[drm604]

22. Natural selection is NOT random.

You're attacking a strawman. Natural selection is not random. The only randomness is in the process (random mutation) that generates the pool of genetic material which natural selection non-randomly chooses from.

Enough random coin tosses will approach 50% heads/tails, and enough random mutations will create a large pool of useful genetic material for natural selection to choose from.

[Swamp Rat]

7. LOL!

:rofl: Anything said after "Darwinists" is utter bullshit! :eyes:

[drm604]

8. As others have mentioned

the "Discovery Institute" is a bullshit front group for the ID crowd. If you go to the whois page for the IP address of discovery.org you'll see that there are 51 domains (including discovery.org) registered at the same IP address (I've listed them below). A lot of them simply forward you to discovery.org if you try to go to them. Others have their own website, darwintohitler.com for example, which hawks a book that lays at least part of the blame for Naziism on Charles Darwin (did I hear someone say "Godwin's law"?).

What I'd like to know is, what the hell do cascadiaproject.org and transportationwashington.org have to do with any of this? They both appear on the surface to be some sort of regional planning organizations and they are very upfront about they're association with the Discovery Institute. I wonder if either of these two organizations are getting public tax dollars and if they are just where those dollars are being spent? Inquiring minds want to know!

1 CASCADIAPROJECT.ORG.
2 CRSC.ORG.
3 CSCDONORS.COM.
4 CSCDONORS.ORG.
5 CSCDONORSSOCIETY.COM.
6 CSCDONORSSOCIETY.ORG.
7 CSLEWISONLINE.ORG.
8 DARWINANDDESIGN.COM.
9 DARWINISMANDDESIGN.COM.
10 DARWINISMDESIGNANDPUBLICEDUCATION.COM.
11 DARWINTOHITLER.COM.
12 DARWINTOHITLER.ORG.
13 DEBATINGDARWIN.COM.
14 DISCOVERY.ORG.
15 EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG.
16 ICONSOFEVOLUTION.COM.
17 ICONSOFEVOLUTION.NET.
18 ICONSOFEVOLUTION.ORG.
19 IDEASHAVECONSEQUENCE.ORG.
20 IDTHEFUTURE.COM.
21 IDTHEFUTURE.NET.
22 IDTHEFUTURE.ORG.
23 INTELLIGENTDESIGNBLOG.COM.
24 INTELLIGENTDESIGNTHEFUTURE.COM.
25 INTELLIGENTDESIGNTHEFUTURE.NET.
26 JONATHANWELLS.ORG.
27 NOFREELUNCHBOOK.COM.
28 NOFREELUNCHBOOK.ORG.
29 PBSEVOLUTION.COM.
30 PBSEVOLUTION.ORG.
31 PRIVILEGEDPLANET.COM.
32 PRIVILEGEDPLANET.ORG.
33 REVIEWEVOLUTION.COM.
34 REVIEWEVOLUTION.NET.
35 REVIEWEVOLUTION.ORG.
36 RUSSIABLOG.INFO.
37 RUSSIABLOG.NET.
38 RUSSIABLOG.ORG.
39 THECASCADIACENTER.ORG.
40 TRANSPORTATIONWASHINGTON.ORG.
41 UNCOMMONDISSENT.COM.
42 VIRTUALREALITYBLOG.COM.
43 VIRTUALREALITYBLOG.NET.
44 VIRTUALREALITYBLOG.ORG.
45 WASHINGTONTRANSPORTATION.ORG.
46 WHATISINTELLIGENTDESIGN.COM.
47 WHATISINTELLIGENTDESIGN.NET.
48 WHATISINTELLIGENTDESIGN.ORG.
49 WORLDVIEWBLOG.COM.
50 WORLDVIEWBLOG.NET.
51 WORLDVIEWBLOG.ORG.

[hughee99]

9. It's not like their pushing intelligent design or anything,

they're just saying that, in their opinion, Darwin's theory doesn't really explain macro evolution (large scale morphological mutations) which some believe is more significant. They don't seem to dispute Darwin's micro evolution explanation, they just don't think it covers it all. I'm not really up on what their theory is, but they're not pushing god, just another path for scientific investigation. I don't see any problem with looking into it, even if only to disprove it.

[drm604]

11. There's nothing to look into.

They're ignoring generations of research. It's already been "looked into".

[Bridget Burke]

13. Yes, they are--into the Public Schools & Colleges

www.discovery.org/csc/freeSpeechEvolCamp2.php

Check out the other links throughout the website. They aren't just quarreling with Darwin--most of them DO want to PROVE God's role in evolution--or whatever.

They are free to investigate all they wish. But Intelligent Design has no place in science class.

[hughee99]

17. All I looked at was the original link,

and the http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/ from there which didn't mention anything at all about intelligent design. I see that they're directing questions to discovery.org, which apparently does, though.

[OneBlueSky]

10. just another neocon "think tank" , i.e. propaganda machine . . . n/t

.

[Viking12]

14. NYT: Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition

In the recent skirmishes over evolution, advocates who have pushed to dilute its teaching have regularly pointed to a petition signed by 514 scientists and engineers.

The petition, they say, is proof that scientific doubt over evolution persists. But random interviews with 20 people who signed the petition and a review of the public statements of more than a dozen others suggest that many are evangelical Christians, whose doubts about evolution grew out of their religious beliefs. And even the petition's sponsor, the Discovery Institute in Seattle, says that only a quarter of the signers are biologists, whose field is most directly concerned with evolution. The other signers include 76 chemists, 75 engineers, 63 physicists and 24 professors of medicine.

The petition was started in 2001 by the institute, which champions intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution and supports a "teach the controversy" approach, like the one scuttled by the state Board of Education in Ohio last week.

Institute officials said that 41 people added their names to the petition after a federal judge ruled in December against the Dover, Pa., school district's attempt to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.

Edited to add link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/sciencespecial2/21peti.html?ei=5088&en=de5bd718715864a0&ex=1298178000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1140525926-MipGMvjXJBSRVayGwI1KqA

[hughee99]

16. Self Delete.

replied to wrong message

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Phillip Skell?

He's like a half-million years old. He's probably senile and that's why he signed. I met him back in the 70's. (My advisor was one of his research assistants in the early 60's.)
Hard to believe he signed onto this nonsense.
The Professor

[Viking12]

19. apparently he's a full blown creationist nutjob....

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/creationist_e_mail_phil_skell/

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/skell_again/

[ProfessorGAC]

20. That's Him For Sure

PSU and all that. This is a guy who was one of the pioneers in the field of a mechanistic explanation of organic reactions. How he could have fallen into this mental trap is quite a mystery?
The Professor